


The Beginning at the End

by dozmuffinxc



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 18:23:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3701887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dozmuffinxc/pseuds/dozmuffinxc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An anon on Tumblr requested Adlock with the prompt "things you said when I was crying." This pseudo-character study and "missing scene" from the end of "A Scandal in Belgravia" is what happened as a  result!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beginning at the End

It’s amazing how cold the desert is at night. A few hours earlier and she’d have been panting in her cell, rubbing the sweat from her eyes and stretching bruised arms towards the window five feet above her head for the chance at catching an errant breeze. In those moments, she had truly wished to die. She would have welcomed her jailers if they had come for her then, would have bowed her head gratefully to their blades. Now, with the chill penetrating deep into her bones, all she wants to do is live.

They take her outside of their camp, not bothering to keep her chained. Where would she go? There are miles and miles of rolling sand hills between her and the nearest town, and their bullets can travel much faster than her bleeding feet. She stumbles, and for one blissful moment she thinks she’s hit a landmine and _God it would be wonderful to take them out with her_ , but it’s just a rock. They push her forward, bruised toes aching, without pause.

Their voices as they force her to her knees are loud, self-righteous. No matter that she doesn’t understand their foreign tongue: it’s the same speech they’ve used on her for weeks through beatings and nights of sleep deprivation, and the words all come to the same thing – _you will die_. There is no reprieve for a woman like her, a woman who has spent her life building defenses forged of blackmail and betrayal, and although she knows this, she can’t stop the tears from welling in her eyes.

As the men sharpen their blades, her thoughts turn to Him. It’s a wild, insane, pointless desire, but she wants desperately to know what he’s doing right now. If he’s thinking about her. If he remembers her at all, or if he’s deleted her from his memory like so much useless chaff. He does that, she knows, with information that he deems unworthy. She knows so little about him, but what she knows is incredible and she can’t help wondering – even now, even at the end of all things – if life had turned out differently, what they might have been to each other.

She still has her cell phone, and she manages to type out one final message.

One of the men approaches her, his head scarf masking his features. She wishes she knew the Urdu word for coward, but even if she did, her tongue lies too thickly in her mouth to spit indictments at her executioner. The man holds out his hand for her cell phone, and as she drops it into his waiting palm, all resistance drains away. She attempts to breathe deeply – _one last breath, one more taste of life_ – but she chokes on the taste of sand and fear and she almost misses it. 

_Impossible._ But no, there’s no mistaking that sound: she recorded it herself, programmed it on His phone as a joke, a tease, a temptation, and there’s no way she’s hallucinating now. She whips her head to the left towards the man who stands, sword poised to strike, considering her with silver-green eyes. His voice is exactly as she remembers it.

“When I say run, _run._ ”

The next few moments are a blur of flashing blades and clashing swords. A dozen armed men run to the aid of their comrade, but they are no match for Him, and when he says “run,” she throws off her head scarf and runs with a speed she didn’t know she had remaining to her. 

It is only later, her head in his lap and the sound of helicopter blades beating the night air into submission, that she allows herself to believe that He’s real.

Sherlock Holmes. The man who saved her.


End file.
